RE: "Turn on the radio?"

[Martyn Perry <Martyn -dot- Perry -at- Sun -dot- COM>]

>Excerpt on dangling prepostions from the Guide to Grammar and Style by
>Peter Lynch (http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/p.html):
>
>"According to a widely circulated (and often mutated) story, Winston
>Churchill, reprimanded for ending a sentence with a preposition, put it
>best: 'This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put.'" 
>
>Johanne Cadorette
>
 "On" in this use is not a preposition, just as "up" in Churchill's famous, but 
fatuous, quip is not. It is an adverb that is part of the verb. English, because 
it is a germanic language uses adverbs to modify the meaning of verbs: knock 
out, turn off, turn on, and the like. 

This adverb originally followed the objects of the verb of the clause in which 
it is because it modifies the whole simple predicate, for example: "His face 
lights up when he sees her," or :She knock him out with a left hook." 

This construction is sometimes called the pincher construction.  Now, you 
occaisionally see the adverb be placed before the objects of the verb as in 
"turn on the radio."  One  often does this to emphasize the action of the verb.

Adverbs can also be attached to verbs as prefixes to modify the meaning , such 
"undertake," "outline," and the like.  In this construction, the adverb is 
always part of the verb and never separated from it. 

The latter construction is the norm in most of the other members of the 
Indoeuropean languages.

Again pick the most common useage. Remember the documentation is read by those 
whose command of English is not native and may not be fluent and that the 
documentation may be translated.  Be kind to them.  Remember also that there is 
no academy of English, so there is really no appeal to authority.  Literature of 
is on little help, because it is written for entirely different 
purposes--appealing to Shakespeare is useless.

Martyn

   


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